Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/485

 REVIEWS 471

from the critic, but whenever he has the hardihood to leave these guides and speak from his own general knowledge of the subject in hand he is beyond his depth at once. The following sentence, selected at ran- dom, is a fair sample of the kind of history Mr. Adams writes when left to his own resources : " Probably the Greek Empire had culmi- nated under Justinian, who was crowned in 527, about fifty years after Odoacer assumed the title of King of Italy." Of the same order is the remarkable characterization of the Vandal migration given on page 25. It is a pity that Mr. Adams did not consult at least the Britannica before writing up the Vandals. In the present progress of historic science it is safer than Gibbon. In general the range of authorities from whom the author has drawn his facts is exceed- ingly meager for a subject covering so vast a range as the Law of Civilization and Decay. The absolute dearth of untranslated German authorities, save one reference to an obscure sermon of Zwingli, leads to the conviction that the author has hobbled through his subject upon one crutch. In English history, besides the standard French and English economic works upon prices and corresponding subjects he cites largely from Froude and Macaulay. One misses Hume and Agnes Strickland. Of German history, either in German or any other lan- guage, the author is profoundly ignorant. His account of the " Canossa affair" (pp. 52-54) is simply delicious. One seldom meets outside of the old monastic biographers a finer piece of imaginary history.

The above sufficiently prepares the reader for the complete failure of the author to comprehend the great movements of the middle period out of which has arisen our modern civilization. The fact is the author sees with only one eye. He has lost the power of perspec- tive. He sees everything flat. All human progress is to him the out- working of greed. The history of civilization is the record of a series of pirate raids. He fails to see the operation of any motives more noble than those which control the bloody wrangle of a bandit's camp over the division of spoil. Hence there is scarcely a movement in the past which he understands or presents fairly. The economic causes of the decline of the ancient classical civilization he has grasped correctly, but in endeavoring .to make the most of his argument he has sadly distorted the proportions in ignoring other causes. Of the eco- nomic origin of feudalism he might have made more, greatly to the strengthening of his general argument, if he had known more about feudalism. When he comes to treat of the extension of Christianity.